Ms Downing, a partner at Co Antrim firm Magennis & Creighton, has received an OBE for services to children and families and to voluntary work in the community in Northern Ireland.

She is an experienced family lawyer with particular expertise in Children Order proceedings, having been a member of the Law Society’s Children Order Panel since its formation in 1995.

Ms Jackson, a partner at Herbert Smith Freehills, has received an MBE for services to the Northern Ireland economy and innovation in law.

She was director of the international law firm’s Belfast office, which offers alternative legal services, when it opened in 2011, and is now based in London as the firm’s global head of alternative legal services.